Intel is not only a microprocessor technology innovator, but also a co-creator of the open source software platform MeeGo and part of the GENIVI alliance. MeeGo supports multiple hardware architectures across various mobile devices types, including netbooks, tablets, mediaphones, TVs and in-vehicle infotainment systems.

MeeGo 1.0 for Netbooks already integrates OpenStreetMap maps and services in the core user experience. More collaboration is planned: input from the OSM community is more than welcome. Please visit http://meego.com for more information and downloadable images for your mobile devices.

Intel and MeeGo promote open and collaborative solutions, open data, open-source, and picnics.

Bing is a decision engine from Microsoft, designed to help users make more decisions more easily. Location is pivotal to today’s search and the Bing Maps Explore site at www.bing.com/maps/explore now features Map Apps, a gallery of content and experiences built by Bing, its partners, and now open to developers using the Map Apps SDK. The King of Bing Maps challenge is currently on, to find the best Map App. Microsoft has a long history in online mapping, and today’s Bing Maps APIs provide mapping, imagery and location services with a choice of technologies, including REST, AJAX and Silverlight. More information at www.microsoft.com/maps.

AOL Inc., a leading global web services company with an extensive suite of brands and offerings and a substantial worldwide audience, has a strategic focus on local. MapQuest, Patch and City’s Best make up the three pillars of AOL’s local strategy.

Mapquest is one of the leading brands online, offering maps and directions reaching more than 49.2 million users in May 2010, according to Comscore unified UV metrics.

Patch is a hyper-local news and information platform operating in more than 65 communities currently. Patch is making an important investment in local journalism by placing professional journalists in each town it serves to encourage community participation and provide original, trusted coverage for each individual town.

City’s Best will launch in 25 major metro markets in September 2010 and add high-quality, city-specific content to its “best of” entertainment options for each metro audience.

AOL’s local strategy is focused on building a leading portfolio of the most trusted, comprehensive and accessible local content, products and services. We aim to delight our consumers with new feaures and functionality across mapping and content at both the local and metro level.

We are happy to welcome Ulmon Solutions to the community and are pleased to announce, that Ulmon Solutions will participate as a sponsor in Girona.

Ulmon Solutions is focussed on delivering location-aware travel and navigation apps, based on openstreetmap and wikipedia data.

Their “2Go” Maps and Guides Apps have been very well received by users. Ulmon Solution has announced several innovations in the pipeline for this year. So we are looking forward to exciting discussions and networking with their representatives in Girona.

The Knight Foundation has given away over $20 million towards news innovation through theKnight News Challenge, a five-year $25 million initiative to build the next-generation infrastructure to inform and engage communities.

The News Challenge is interested in all layers of the map stack, including data gathering, tile rendering, and interactive consumer-facing applications.

The requirements to enter the Knight News Challenge are three-fold: innovation, involving news and information, and having a local geographic angle. In general, the reviewers look favorably upon projects that can be considered catalytic — whether as a proof-of-concept, creating open-source infrastructure tools that can be leveraged by others, or taking an existing project with traction that can be brought to scale. It is generally a strength if an applicant has an existing history with open source projects or has an existing beta product. The News Challenge requires any code and intellectual property funded by the foundation to be released open source or under Creative Commons by the end of the grant.

Jennifer 8. Lee, the lead Knight News Challenge reviewer, will be available at theState of The Map conference in Girona, Spain to explain how to craft an effective proposal and to field questions.

Last year the contest received over 2,300 proposals. The initial application is a simple set of questions, designed to help lead people who have never gone through a grant process before. As you proceed through the rounds, the questions get more detailed.

The next deadline will be in fall 2010. Please visitnewschallenge.org for more information.

Spot Image is a provider of added-value satellite imagery and geospatial services. Starting as the commercial operator of the SPOT satellites, Spot Image is now a supplier of imagery from a range of other optical and radar Earth-imaging satellites.

Spot Image supports the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters (http://www.disasterscharter.org/) by its capacity and daily revisit capability to acquire imagery of any point on Earth. In addition, the rich global archive of SPOT imagery compiled since 1986, now containing nearly 20 million images, provides pre-disaster images of a region of interest for comparative analysis and damage assessment. Spot Image also participate in SAFER (Services and Applications For Emergency Response : http://www.emergencyresponse.eu/ ) which is a large European project funded in the frame of the GMES initiative (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security).

When the case of global warming was so widely made in 2006, Spot Image could not do but decide to engage in action to tackle it: no other industry is better placed than Earth Observation to support projects and action fighting Climate Change. Planet Action (http://www.planet-action.org/) was launched in 2007 by Spot Image, leading supplier of satellite imagery and geo-information, joined by ESRI, leading GIS technologies provider as co-founder. Planet Action objectives are to support local projects acting on Climate Change-related issues by providing geographic information and technology to NGOs, universities, research centers…

CloudMade, which won ‘Best Emerging Startup‘ at the 2010 Mobile World Congress, returns as our Diamond sponsor of the State of the Map. Within the community CloudMade is well known thanks to the important work of its founders Steve Coast and Nick Black.

CloudMade is a platform and tools company serving consumers, mappers, developers and advertisers around the world. Its user-friendly mapping applications: Mapzen web editor, together with Mapzen POI Collector, for iPhone, significantly reduce the complexity of editing and adding Points of Interest (POIs) to OpenStreetMap.

Thousands of mobile and web developers use CloudMade’s free tools every day to create innovative, geo-enabled products. Its mapping platform powers several market leading location and map based applications from prominent developers. For more information about developing with CloudMade visit http://bit.ly/aN7WSs

ESRI in one of the major Geographic Information Systems vendors for Desktop, Server GIS, Mobile, Web and now Cloud. ESRI is well-known among most GIS professionals. Earlier this year, ESRI surprised the OpenStreetMap community with OSM support in some of their products, including the recently launched www.arcgis.com.

Contribute your Data and Share, Discover and Leverage other Worldwide Maps
and Apps in the Geospatial Community Cloud, hosted by ESRI at www.arcgis.com.

We are pleased to welcome CENATIC (the National Reference Centre of applied open-source IT) as a silver sponsor to the State of the Map.

CENATIC is the Spanish Government’s strategic project to empower the use of open-source software and knowledge in all facets of society. The foundation is commited to position itself as the national centre for excellence, with international projection.

We welcome Nutiteq as sponsor of the State of the Map in Girona. Nutiteq is a mobile software development company in the niche of open mobile mapping solutions. They create apps and provide a mobile mapping SDK to location-based service providers, mobile operators and mobile developers all over the world, with millions of end-users. Nutiteq has used OpenStreetMap as one of the main map data sources.

Also interested in sponsoring the State of the Map 2010? Contact the organising team for more information at sponsors@stateofthemap.org.